A.  In contrast with DDC - which is primarily concerned with creating the perfect the perfect arrangement of all recorded knowledge - LCC is designed solely for ease of implementation
 

• Philosophical considerations are subordinated or eliminated whenever necessary
• This orientation results from its original purpose of organizing a specific collection; i.e., LC

• Classification numbers which designate narrow topics are no more cumbersome than general numbers
• Any library using this scheme can take class. nos. directly from LC catalog records

D.  History of the LCC
 

• LC founded in 1800

1. originally consisted of 740 books
2. classified by size and subdivided by accession nos.
 
 
• A subject arrangement adopted in 1812
 

1. based on scheme of Ben Franklin's Library Company of Philadelphia, which in turn drew on the ideas of Francis Bacon and D'Alembert
 
1. the 18 classes subdivided by size and then arranged alphabetically

• In 1815, Congress purchases Jefferson's library
1. 6,487 books
2. classified into 44 main classes ("chapters") subdivided by geographic modifications
3. Jefferson's system remained in use, with modifications, throughout the 19^th century

• Forces behind push for a new classification scheme:

1. by 1890, collection had grown to 1 million volumes
2. in 1897, library moved to a new building
3. that same year Herbert Putnam named Librarian of Congress

• 3 well-known schemes analyzed:

1. DDC, 5^th ed.

1. Dewey reluctant to compromise integrity of his system to meet the needs of LC
2. Otherwise, DDC probably would have been chosen as the national system of classification

1. Otto Hatwig's Halle Schema judged too strongly oriented in traditional German philosophical thought for the purpose of a congressional library
2. Charles Ammi Cutter's Expansive system proved adaptable
3.    (1) examples:

--elimination of lower case letters as a principle of subdivision

--addition of arabic numerals in an integral, not a decimal, sequence
(2) modification of list of major classes, employing existing capital letters with the exception I,O,W,X and Y (and adding P which wasn't present in the Cutter system)
--the 1904 outline of LCC contained the following major classes:

C History - Auxiliary sciences

D History and topography (except American)

E American general and U.S. general history

F U.S. local and American outside U.S. history

G Geography, anthropology

H Social sciences

J Political sciences

K Law

L Education

M Music

N Fine arts
P Language and literature
Q Science

R Medicine

S Agriculture

T Technology

U Military sciences

V Naval sciences

Z Bibliography

1. Significance of having classifiers working with actual coll.; i.e., "literary warrant"

• Variations from schedule to schedule in

1. content
2. scope
3. indexing
4. use of auxiliary tables

• Imbalance in certain areas; e.g., 2 entire classes for American history
• Basic principles of organization differ from one class to another

1. Class P places all literary works by a given author together
2. Class M groups musical compositions by form

1. Overall arrangement of the system

• Consists of the following schedules:

BL-BQ Religion: Religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, Buddlism

BR-BV Religion: Christianity, Bible

BX Religion: Christian denominations

C Auxiliary Sciences of History

D History: General and Old World (Eastern Hemisphere)

DJK-DK History of Eastern Europe (General), Soviet Union, Poland

DS History of Asia

E-F History, America (Western Hemisphere)

G Geography, Maps, Anthropology, Recreation

H-HJ Social Sciences: Economics

HM-HX Social Sciences: Sociology

J Political Science

K Law (General)

KD Law of the United Kingdom and Ireland

KDZ,

KG-KH Law of the Americas, Latin America and the West Indies

KE Law of Canada

KF Law of the United States

KLV-

KJW Law of France

KK-KKC Law of Germany

L Education

M Music

N Fine Arts

P-PA General Philology and Linguistics, Classical Languages and Literatures

PA

Supp. Byzantine and Modern Greek Literature, Medieval and Modern Latin Lit.

PB-PH Modern European Languages

PG Russian Literature

PJ-PK Oriental Philology and Lterature, Indo-Iranian Philology and Literature

PL-PM Languages of Eastern Asia, Africa, Oceania; Hyperborean, Indian and

Artificial Languages

P-PM

Supp. Index to Languages and Dialects

PN, PR,

PS-PZ General Literature, English and American Literature, Fiction in English,

Juvenile belles lettres

PQ, Pt1 French Literature

PQ, Pt2 Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese Literature

PT, Pt1 German Literature

PT, Pt2 Dutch and Scandinavian Literature

P-PZ Language and Literature Tables

Q Science

R Medicine

S Agriculture

T Technology

U Military Sciences

V Naval Science

Z Bibliography, Library Science

• Each of these schedules published as a separate volume

1. a new edition of a given schedule may appear at any time independently of all others
2. LC publishes quarterly lists of revisions but reissues an entire schedule only when a significant amount of revisions have accumulated

1. this function has been taken over by Gale Research, Inc.
2. Gale omits a schedule from this series only when

7. Most schedules contain one or more main classes

• However, a multiple-letter class does not always represent a logical subdivision of the topic which its initial letter alone designates
• e.g., Class GV, "Recreation," has nothing to do with Class G, "Geography"
• Hierarchical arrangements appear at many points throughout the scheme

1. however, they are not arequirement of it
2. they only appear when and if they make the system easier to use

• Classes might be grouped into 4 broad categories:

1. Schedule A: General wors, Polygraphy
2. Schedules B-P: Humanistic disciplines and the social sciences
3. Schedules Q-V: Natural sciences and technology
4. Schedule Z: Bibliography and library science (separation of bibliographies from other works on a subject is one example of LCC's failure to class similar items together)

7. Arrangement of individual schedules

• Each schedule contains:

1. a prefatory note on its history and scope

1. most very brief
2. Gale editions lack these notes

1. a synopsis, listing all classes covered therein (not in all of them)
2. an outline of the whole schedule
3. schedule itself, which is essentially a list, numbered 1-9999, of topics within each class

1. although this list contains groups of topics subordinate to others, there is no consistent representation of hierarchy in corresponding numbers
2. decimal numbers incorporated solely to facilitate infinite expansion

1. a set of auxiliary tables

1. appears only in certain schedules
2. all tables, except one for arranging biographical material, apply only to the schedule in which they appear
3. some tables apply to only a single number in the 1-9999 range, others to a span of numbers

1. a detailed index covering only th schedule involved

• First ten or so numbers in the 1-9999 range for each class denote various aspects of the class as a whole

1. like DDC's Standard Subdivisions, they designate either form of publication (e.g., encyclopedias) or point of view (theory, methodology, philosophy, etc.)
2. certain number spans designating broad topics within some classes also begin with a set of form of point-of-view designations

7. Expanding the system

• LC may add whole new classes to the scheme by means of previously unused combinations of capital letters
• Use of vacant letters

1. unlikely development
2. reasons:

1. some of the letters present inherent problems

--"I" and "O" resemble digits "1" and "0"

--"X" might be perceived as either the obliteration of an error or an instruction to disregard what precedes or follows

2. National Library of Medicine has already claimed one of the vacant letters. "W"

7. Parts of a Library of Congress call number

• Uses a combination of capital Roman letters and Arabic numerals

1. most contain between 3 and 5 distinct sections
2. on catalog cards and spine labels, each section usually appears on a separate line

• Example: A Most Wondrous Babble: American Art Composers…1950-1985, by Nicholas E. Tawa

1. first element is letter/group of letters designating the class:

ML = Literature on Music

2. decimal number "200.5" = History and criticism of American music composed from 1900 to the present
3. first two portions make up the class number
4. .T36 is a cutter number

1. used by LC for several purposes

--most notably to place all items bearing a given lass number in a logical order on the shelves

--a cutter number with this function is termed an item number

2. a decimal number in the range .1 to .9999 with a capital Roman letter between the decimal point and first digit
3. cutter numbers stand for some word or phrase

--capital letter the first letter of the word…

--the digits loosely represent the remaining letters of the word…

4. LC uses following Cutter Tables:

After initial "S"

a ch e hi mop t u

2 3 4 5 6 7-8 9

After initial "Qu"

a e I o r y

3 4 5 6 7 9

After other initial consonants

a e I o r u y

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

After initial vowels

b d lm n p r st uy

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

For third letter

a-d e-h i-l m n-q r-t u-w x-z

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

5. most item numbers represent a book's main entry, since that is what libraries generally use to arrange items
6. no library must use LC's cutter numbers

1. final component is date of publication

1. required only on certain call numberss; e.g., those assigned to any edition of a book other than the first
2. the date is always permitted, however, and LC has adopted a policy of adding it to all call numbers

• Second of two most common types of call numbers consists of two cutter numbers

1. second doesn't have a decimal point
2. only place where a second decimal point may appear is in the numeric component of theclass number
3. when written on a single line, the two cutter numbers are generally written without an intervening space
4. examples:

TS TS1774.5 U5S64 1990

1774.5

.U5

S64

1990

5. above a geographic cutter

1. S64 an item number
2. U5 part of the class number (Specifies country, the U.S.)

7. Available indexes to LCC

• A major drawback to classification by use of LC schedules is the lack of any sort of overall index

1. separate indexes appear at the ends of schedules
2. there are only occasional cross-references to another point in the scheme
3. these indexes are alphabetical listings that make no attempt to draw together the various aspects of a subject into one coherent whole in the manner of DDC's Relative Index

• Nancy Olson, in Combined Indexes to the Library of Congress Classification Schedules (U.S. Historical Documents Institute, 1975. 15.), has attempted to fill this gap by combining the many indexes into a few overall indexes

1. each organized by a different principle
2. examples:

1. the most useful sets are those

1. this permits

1. some kind of a subject approach to LC scheme
2. demonstrates the various points in the schedule where the same subject is treated from different aspects

1. while several volumes may be thought of as a quasithesaurus, it was not intended as a relative index

• Other partial indexes to the LC scheme:

1. Library of Congress Subject Headings List

1. in 14^th edition, 36% of headings appear with at least one call number

--many appear with several

--example: Homing pigeons

SF469 (Animal culture)

UH90 (Military art and science)

2. in cases where no call number is given, "BT" references guide user to proper schedules

1. Your library's subject catalog

1. search provides

--list of possible call numbers

--indication whether any one number predominates as the choice for a given subject

2. anyone using this method should always verify the number found since